Anti-nuke group files lawsuit against NRC

Tuesday

May 15, 2012 at 2:00 AM

SEABROOK — The Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, along with two other nuclear safety groups, is taking a federal agency to court over the planned extension of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant's operating license until 2050.

Shir Haberman

SEABROOK — The Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, along with two other nuclear safety groups, is taking a federal agency to court over the planned extension of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant's operating license until 2050.

"On behalf of Seacoast residents, we have the right to have a full hearing on this absurdly premature and ill-advised relicensing proposal, so we are compelled to take NRC (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to federal court and, hopefully, make them bow to common sense," said Doug Bogen, executive director of the Exeter-based SAPL, in a press release issued Monday.

Bogen went on to reference last year's disaster in Japan.

"In denying us the right to a hearing, the NRC is showing it's in a serious state of denial over the post-Fukushima realities of global and local efforts to pursue cleaner and safer electric power options," he said.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency has not yet fully reviewed the lawsuit and probably would not comment publicly until after it responds to the court.

"We haven't had an opportunity to review it yet," Sheehan said Monday. "Our attorneys will look at it and supply a detailed response to the court."

In May 2010, NextEra Energy, the company that operates the local nuclear power plant, applied to the NRC to extend the plant's current 40-year operating license, which expires in 2030, for another 20 years until 2050.

The three environmental groups (SAPL, the New Hampshire Sierra Club and the Washington, D.C.-based Beyond Nuclear) petitioned the NRC on Oct. 20, 2010, requesting a public hearing. The organizations claimed NextEra had not done an adequate environmental review of less harmful energy alternatives to the generation of power using radioactive fuel as required by the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). On Feb. 15, 2011, the NRC's Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB), the group that adjudicates charges such as the one leveled by the three groups, issued an order granting these groups the hearing they had requested.

The groups had submitted dozens of expert documents in support of their request for a public hearing for the NRC to review the state of Maine-proposed development of five gigawatts — the power equivalent of four Seabrook plants — of offshore and deepwater wind power in the Gulf of Maine for transmission of electricity into Maine and the New England region by 2030.

However, on Feb. 25, 2011, NextEra appealed the ASLB decision and, on March 8, 2012, the NRC upheld the appeal, preventing the three from taking part in the license extension hearings. That leaves only two contentions concerning the extension request to be adjudicated by the ASLB, both of which were filed jointly by the Maine-based Friends of the Coast and New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution in Vermont. The first of the remaining contentions claims that the Severe Accident Mitigation Alternatives report submitted by NextEra as part of its license extension request minimized the potential amount of radiation that could be released by the Seabrook plant as the result of a severe accident. The second claimed that NextEra used a faulty modeling process to determine how air currents along the coast would disperse any radioactivity released from the Seabrook plant in the event of a severe accident.

Jerry Curran, chairman of the New Hampshire chapter of the Sierra Club explained why his organization chose to be part of the federal lawsuit.

"In overturning its own board's decision, the (NRC) commissioners have essentially ignored federal law, namely the National Environmental Policy Act, that is the basis for this intervention, which was approved by the presiding licensing board," said Curran. "We strongly believe that it is the duty of the federal court to ensure that federal law is not trampled on by five members of an appointed regulatory commission, and we are confident that our challenge will prevail."

A similar case involves opponents of a license extension for a nuclear plant in Ohio, Bogen said. The NRC has also declined to hear arguments about how the electricity generated by the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, located just outside Toledo, might be replaced when the plant's license expires in 2017.

Commission members voted unanimously to reverse a decision by the ASLB involved in that process to convene a hearing on "clean" alternatives to nuclear power, such as wind and solar energy, the Toledo Blade reported. In that case, "the NRC conceded that overturning the decision did not represent business as usual," the paper wrote.

Bogen said SAPL is hopeful other nuclear safety groups will join the lawsuit.

Bogen said it will be about 60 days before the court will ask the parties to file additional information in the Seabrook case. The SAPL director said he expects the court to take a year or more to deliver a verdict in the case.

To see the details of the Seabrook case, visit www.beyondnuclear.org.

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